My Deal

The world is a good place that can be better. We have so much potential to come together and do good. Yet we let our preconceived ideas about how things should be, get in our way of actualizing positivity. We walk around blind to our own struggles and accept poor experiences as a way of life. And when we do realize a problem, we don't think we can make a difference.

Well, I believe that is total bullshit. I believe we can make a difference. I believe we can make this world an awesome place to live in. My motivation for being a designer is to do just that by bringing people together and make things better.

My process puts customer research at the heart of the problem. If one tries to design from heuristics, thats what they'll get - an experience that theymightlike. Design is empathy. Empathy comes from knowing your customer.

I realize that getting customer feedback on anything can be challenging with cost and time constraints. I pride myself on being super scrappy and getting to the customer wherever and however. Research doesn't have to take weeks and thousands of dollars. It can be done thoughtfully and inexpensively. But it needs to be done because research is extremely important to helping shape your product.

It's my gold and I do anything I can to get out and talk to potential users. Customer research is much like a whiteboard, once presented to a team, they get exponentially smarter.

To that notion - I like to be inclusive in my discovery methods. When this happens, it centers the entire team around the customer making it an extremely powerful tool to increase the likelihood of buy-in. It also empowers the team to act independently and quickly.

I utilize many artifacts in bringing the voice of the customer to life, but by far my favorite is the journey map (or just a plain old map). It lays everything out so you can begin asking the right questions. When people can see the broken experience and then understand the emotions it causes a customer and shows the business impact - its awe-inspiring stuff. I love it.

So you came to this page to know what my "deal" is. My deal is that I am a product strategist, an experience designer, a UX researcher and Grade A Problem Solver. I have 10 years of experience ranging from:

Investigating environmental lawsuits

Handling homeowner claims in Baltimore City

Managing a group of 12 amazing call center reps

Acting as a product owner and UX designer for 4 major enterprise and customer facing applications